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Skeletons in the ground. What is buried here is a great archaeological peculiarity. Because beneath Lübeck's streets hides a historic cemetery for the poor.
For more than 200 years – from 1639 to 1868 – people who had previously lived in the so-called poorhouse at the former Augustinian monastery "St. Annen" were buried here; but also those who could not afford a "normal" cemetery.
Ingrid Sudhoff, Chief Archaeologist of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck
»There are not always individual skeletons here, but there are several next to each other. That is, one area is examined and exposed at the same time. And that takes a day to prepare it so freely. Then the whole thing has to be documented.«
In Lübeck's city centre, the rainwater sewers are being renewed. The cemetery is located under the construction site area. Archaeologists have been uncovering the resting place since mid-February. The dead have been buried so deeply that there are sometimes three layers stacked on top of each other – a common grave, not a mass grave, as the experts say.
Katharina Ostrowski, archaeologist
»We are now putting down a blackboard, so to speak, for the photo documentation, on which the important information for this surface drawing is written. So the date and which area drawing it is and which section it is. And then a scale so that you can see in the photo what kind of scale it has and a north arrow so that you can see the orientation of the finding here.«
Since the cemetery was established, an average of 200 people have been buried here every year. With annual fluctuations, the cemetery is likely to reach about 50,000 dead. So far, around 200 bodies have been found – about 20 of them toddlers and babies. The area is about 8000 square meters. It is true that the cemetery was already known through the evaluation of old documents. During the excavations, however, there was also a surprise.
Chiara Engesser, archaeologist
»You might be able to see this little sphere here. This is a bullet that just came out yesterday or this morning while cleaning and here directly below the skull, as you can see quite nicely."
Whether the bullet was the cause of death is now to be clarified. As with all other skeletons, the scientists take samples that are subsequently examined at the Institute of Clinical Microbiology at Kiel University.
Ingrid Sudhoff, Chief Archaeologist of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck
»But it's not an everyday situation. Especially a cemetery from this period, i.e. an early modern cemetery, is actually something special, even nationwide. This has not been encountered so often and, above all, has not really been investigated so often, even with anthropological investigations. So we're expecting a lot of new research results."